


the trail ends here

by oharlem



Category: James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: BAMF!Q, Bond is secretly a protective grizzly bear, Everyone Loves Q, M/M, Q is kidnapped, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-01-16
Packaged: 2017-11-23 20:48:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/626379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oharlem/pseuds/oharlem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'With the sort of sangfroid expression that only comes with age and experience, Q looked the man in the eye and smiled that burning smile.<br/>“Hit me with your best shot.”<br/>And so he did.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Phase One

**Author's Note:**

> With the sort of sangfroid expression that only comes with age and experience, Q looked the man in the eye and smiled that burning smile.  
> “Hit me with your best shot.”  
> And so he did.
> 
> OR 
> 
> That one time Q was kidnapped and everyone was surprised by the trail of breadcrumbs he leaves and the damage he deals.

Phase 1: Gather Information

Q had been staying late for the past four days, working nonstop and running on nothing but adrenaline and Earl Grey. He hadn’t slept in at least the same amount of time and, while it wasn’t very beneficial to his health, the extra hours had provided him with some much needed alone time. Alone time he could never seem to get during the day, especially not with 007 hanging around his desk almost constantly.

As much as the agent was pleasing to look at, his unwavering stare and incessant hovering made it hard for Q to work on his current assignment. A hacker organisation was rapidly making itself known to MI6 and M had asked Q, as a proficient hacker himself, to look into the group. Many nights of cashing in favours and intensive research had finally paid off, Q had located the organisation. Known as Skull, the group was an anti-government, anti-politics centric organisation with a penchant for torture and a dash of cyanide.

Using some of his closest contacts, Q had managed to obtain blueprints of Skull’s most frequent base and a profile of the leader, Mason Jeffrey, also known as Bones. Original, Q had thought when he read the name, real original. Despite the amateur efforts, Skull seemed to be a rather large network of killers, rogue agents, and, of course, hackers. The job was going to be harder than he thought.

Walking out of Q-branch with his briefcase in tow, he headed down the street towards his flat. ‘Check the time.’ 1:00 on the dot, the same time he had exited the building every night the entire week. Perfect. Out of the corner of his eye, Q saw a car that had looked abandoned pull away from the curb.

‘This is it,’ he thought, ‘It’s showtime.’

And showtime it was. The car, a standard black with an unmarked licence plate, drove quietly and quickly, the perfect vehicle for what was about to happen. It swerved in front of him and Q stopped dead in his tracks, head tilted in anticipation.

Click. Open. Slam. One man driving, another pointing a gun at his face.

“Get in the car.” A Glock, 9mm. Amateur.

“I said, get in the car!” Approximately ten feet between them. The man was just under two metres tall and looked as if he weighed around a hundred kilos. Mostly muscle. Typical.

“And what if I say no?” Perfect. Not too cocky but just challenging enough to get a reaction.  
The man growled and brandished the gun towards Q.

“Then I shoot.”  
“You cannot very well shoot the man you want alive.” Pointing out the obvious. That should definitely frustrate the man. Now, if he would just walk a little closer, Q could put his plan into action.

Nine feet, eight feet, six feet, three feet, one foot. He was fast, faster than Q had anticipated and that caught him off guard. There was something in his pocket, something that was definitely not a gun, something that looked, and smelled, suspiciously of a towel dipped in chloroform. Not what he had expected.

“There are other options.” Those other options included manhandling Q into a rather vulnerable position. 

Duck. Sweep kick. Uppercut. It slowed the man down but didn’t knock him back. The rag was pressed to his nose and Q was eventually forced to breathe in the sweet, sweet fumes. He felt himself slipping away. 

This was not supposed to happen. This was not something he had prepared for. As he drifted off, he felt his weight shift onto the other man and ropes bind his wrists tightly.

Well, shit.

He came to in a dark room, nothing to see, nothing to hear, just nothing. Checklist. No broken bones, tender skin on wrists, bruises on rib cage and back, arms and legs tied to a chair, blindfold and gag in place. 

And he was sore. Q tried to move his body into a more comfortable position but his muscles screamed in protest. He felt dizzy and his head was pounding with each breath he took; oh, yeah, they definitely drugged him. Shaking his head to rid some of the fog, Q strained to listen for any sign of life in the room, for any sign of anything else besides himself and his wounds. 

The longer he listened, the more he heard. Electrical buzzing, fan whirring, faint beeping, and just the quietest ‘click’ of a keyboard. So, a computer room, wonderful. But that didn’t really help Q, he needed to know exactly where he was and how to put his plan, albeit Plan B, into action. Also, he needed a phone. No doubt his captors had rid him of all of his belongings, especially anything with the slightest possibility of being electronic. 

‘I guess I’ll simply have to do this the hard way. Joy.’

As he sat and waited for his assailants, Skull and Bones most likely, to pay him a visit, Q’s mind occupied him in his boredom. It travelled from the periodic table of elements to the coding for a Walther program to the blueprints of Skull’s base and, finally, to those he had unintentionally left behind at Q branch.

He wondered what the minions would do when they walked in seven to a dark facility and an empty office. Would they joke about him finally cracking? Would they worry? Would they continue on work as planned? 

At seven-thirty on the dot, Eve would walk into Q branch, files and a protein bar in tow because she believed that, apparently, Q was incapable of feeding himself. Would she be concerned? Would she chalk it up to him crashing? Or would she just put the papers on his empty desk and the food on his closed laptop?

His mind wandered to Bond, 007 who would enter at eight exactly with two cups in hand: coffee, black, two sugars and Earl Grey, little milk, and a lot of sugar; just the way Q liked it. Would the agent care? Would he give the tea to one of the minions? Would he try to call Q’s cell?

The Quartermaster found himself wrapped up in thoughts of the double O. The quiet conversations exchanged over earpieces in countries various and asunder, the half-amused, half-exasperated looks when Bond returned tech in more than three pieces, the weathered planes and craggy eyes of the agent’s face in the early morning light filtered through the Q branch windows. 

He would never forget how the pain in Bond’s face had disappeared in a loud bark of laughter the first time he had delivered tea to Q at eight in the morning. It had been a long night and when he saw the steaming cup in Bond’s hand he had let out a whoop and all but flung himself at the older man in his thanks. Promptly afterwards he had threatened Bond with fear of various technological incidents should he tell anyone of Q’s actions.

It was then, with thoughts of a sanguine agent in his head, that his captives decided it would be a good time to visit their charge.

“Well, well, well, that’s a rather wistful look, Quartermaster. A penny for your thoughts?”

Q felt rather than heard the man, Bones he presumed, approach him; all heeled boots and no finesse. There was a shadow and the unmistakable heat of another human body and then the blindfold and gag were pulled away and Q could speak, calm as could be.

“I was simply thinking of all the grief you have put my colleagues through.”

“Oh? And what exactly does that have to do with your expression?”

“Obviously, you don’t know what they are capable of, or what I am capable of, for that matter.” Q’s smile was wicked, a blatant jab at the rough edges of Bones’ organisation. The man, large and brash with a scar down the centre of his right eye, grinned in a way that, had Q been anything but himself, would have him shaking in his ropes. 

As it was, however, all the manic grin did was amuse the quartermaster further. Bones pulled up a heavy stainless steel chair and sat down in front of Q, all broken angles and jagged scars.

“Oh, I am quite aware of what you are capable of doing. That’s why you’re here.”

“I figured as much. Need me to hack into MI6, do you?”

Bones let out a trill of laughter, not at all as kind to him as it was to Bond.

“You’re such a clever boy, too.”

“I am as much of a boy as you are a beauty queen.”

This time there was no laughter, there was a sharp slap to Q’s right cheek and the snapping of his neck against the restrained position. Blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth, yet all he did was smile pleasantly up at the man whose face was made uglier by rage.

“I do hope you realise that I will in no way assist you in your endeavours.”

The man’s eyes were cold, ice caps on the tip of a berg, and his movements were forced, as if he were barely controlling himself.

“You will find,” Bones gritted out through clenched teeth, “that we have more than enough leverage on you.”

With the sort of sangfroid expression that only comes with age and experience, Q looked the man in the eye and smiled that burning smile.  
“Hit me with your best shot.”

And so he did.

Bruised, bloodied, and beaten Q found himself in a sparse basement cellar more than fours hours later. Lying and tending to his wounds with the best of his ability, Q gazed at the stained ceiling with a complex expression on his face; triumph, superiority, and wit mixed to create a sort of condescending facade. 

While, yes, his physical body had suffered quite a bit, his mind was still intact and was more than functioning. Q’s brain was whirling a mile a minute, processing all of the new information he had acquired. Bones responses were increasingly sloppy as frustration to Q’s insolence and dry humour affected him and the man’s tongue was more than a little loose when he was angry. 

Phase One: successful. 

Q sighed and let his head fall back against the wall. Now, all he had to do was wait for the next guards to come and begin phase two and his impending hourly reminders that, yes, he was a genius, but, no, he could not survive on water and beatings alone.

It was going to be a long day.


	2. Phase Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skull gets creative and Q has doubts about MI6's faithfulness. Meanwhile, bond is worrying in his own specific way and everyone, including M, is scrambling to find their Quartermaster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a long while, I had exams and school and an avalanche of work. But, it's here! It's not as long as I'd like, so I might add more later. Phase Two of god-knows-how-many. (Most likely, four.)  
> -Misfit

Phase Two: Survey the Area  
WARNING: Wait.

He doesn’t know how long it’s been: minutes, hours, days. Time has started to blend together like the bruises on his body. Some are yellowing, some are a horrid shade of green, and some, the most recent, are a bloom of dark purple on his lily white skin. Q doesn’t think he has ever been in this much physical pain.

But, to him, it doesn’t matter, because he has a plan and he knows exactly what to do to carry it out. First, though, he has to wait. Q has to gather energy and collect his thoughts; after all, they can break his body, but never his mind. He knows that all hell must be breaking loose at MI6, he knows that, any minute now, they’ll finally latch onto the first of many breadcrumbs he dropped. At least, he hopes so; Q has never had to put so much faith into the people he works with.

He fingers the top, left button on the collar of his, now dirty, button-down. His cardigan has long since been destroyed, and the edges of his shirt are beginning to fray under the blow of the beatings. Q wonders, as is his current way to stave off boredom, if Bond was worrying, if Eve was running around like a chicken with its head cut off yet, he wonders if M cares. 

In his endless hours of solitude that are only interrupted by irregular visits from his friendly captors, Q has begun to wonder if there was even anyone at MI6 who was trying. Is anyone looking at the mission files he left in his desk? Is anyone keeping an eye on the screen meant for tracking double o's? Is anyone actually attempting to get their Quartermaster back? He doesn’t know and, the more he thinks about it, the more he doesn’t want to know.

It has been approximately twenty-three minutes and five--six--seven seconds since Bones’ last visit. Q prepares himself, straightens his shirt, runs his fingers through his hair, picks some remaining dirt and dried blood from under his fingernails. No use in appearing beaten down and ragged when he needs to appear at his best. At the back of his mind, there is just the tiniest seed of doubt niggling at Q’s conscious--he pushes it aside and sits on the small cot, chin tilted in an angle of defiance and eyes levelled at the door.

There are footsteps outside and loud voices carry through the hall he has become so familiar with. There is a bright light shining in his eyes, then a shadow cast over the threshold that reaches to the edge of his little bed. The shape is familiar, one of the many lackeys Bones seems to enjoy ordering around. Rough arms grabs his own and Q is being pushed up and out, down a corridor he has never been to and the doubt begins again.

The last words he hears before being shoved into a room that is more akin to an aquarium than anything else, sends a shiver down Q’s spine. Yet, he walks forward and shoots the brute a smirk over his shoulder.  
“Time to play.”  
“Well, I do love a good game of Go Fish.”

A huff of exasperated laughter, and then there is darkness all around him, save for the glowing blue of shark tanks. Time to play, indeed.  
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

All hell was breaking loose at MI6. Bond was showing signs of worry-- nothing too obvious, but it’s in the way he drinks tea instead of coffee and how his eyes wander back to Q’s desk every five minutes. Eve was running around like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to talk to the tech consultants, trying to find out just what the hell Q had gotten himself into this time. And M, well, M was pacing a hole into the neat flooring of Q branch. 

Q was only 29, the youngest Quartermaster in history, also one of the best. M couldn’t afford to lose someone so important so soon in his new position as head of MI6. He had liked Q, enjoyed his fresh look on the world and his unparalleled intelligence. He had even begun to learn how to put up with the man’s obsessive dedication and odd hours, as long as he got the work done. Now, M wishes that he had stayed longer, that he had checked up on Q before leaving that night, that he had done something to show the young Quartermaster that his work was appreciated.

Q branch techs were typing into their computers; everyone who wasn’t on a mission or handling something of the utmost importance was working to track down the missing Quartermaster. Someone had started a stopwatch that hung on the wall above the door to Q’s office. It said 74 hours, twenty-nine minutes, and five--six--seven seconds. Bond finished another mug of Earl Grey with too much sugar and too much milk. The clock kept counting upwards.

He was staring at the same footage he had been staring at for the past hour and a half. Bond knows he’s not tech savvy, he knows that he is old-fashioned and doesn’t understand a lick of what Q branch actually does, but Bond also knows that he is a good spy. And, as a good spy, he spots an attempt to cover up something when he sees one. The footage is of Q, walking out of the building and down the street, he walks for two blocks then turns right, into an alleyway where the CCTV cameras cannot reach.

It feels as if there is something he is missing. The agent tries Q’s cellphone again, tries each of the phones for each of the Quartermaster’s safe houses, the same dial tone reaches him again and again. James steps closer to the screen and pays attention to details as the flickering feed loops over itself. Something is off. And, aha, there it is! How could he have possibly missed that?

Bond turns on his heel, face a perfect mask of collected calm as always, and strides to M as fast he can without drawing attention to himself.

“It’s the same.”

M looks up from the conversation he had been having with another MI6 member.

“What’s the same, 007?” His voice is tired, his face tinged at the edges with the sort of exhaustion Bond knows all too well.

“Everything.” He walks to the screen with the footage playing, and points out what he had seen to M.

“The streets signs repeat themselves wherever Q walks. It’s the same cars, the same people, the same shops. It’s the same every time.”

M goes silent, then explodes in curses of varying intensities. Bond gets himself another mug of tea and waits while M talks to Eve, then Tanner, then, finally, back to the agent.

“Q had been working on a side project for me. Working on getting rid of a group of hackers trying to access the MI6 mainframe. They weren't a threat, more brawn than brain.”

Bond’s hand tightens on the handle of his mug and walks with M over to Q’s office where the large screen meant for tracking double-oh’s was the only light in the room.

“Then it’s possible that this group took Q.”  
“I would say that it’s our only chance of getting him back.”

Stiff muscles tighten even further as Bond nods, staring blankly at the wall of bright red dots blinking across the globe. He and M must have spotted it at the same time, the discrepancy in the board, the flickering light that didn’t match the others.

It was white, unlike the other blood red signals, and the number beside it was 002. The only problem, M and Bond knew, was that 002 was supposed to be in Barcelona, Spain, not the upper London area.

“Q.”

There is a flurry of activity as M calls for Eve and Eve calls for techs and the techs try to lock onto coordinates. Then, the movement stops all at once when the white dot that could have only been their Quartermaster flickers once, twice, then dies out. There is no way to find him, the signal is gone and the coding for the system is far too complicated for any of the Q branch to find the location of Q’s dot.

Bond is the first to speak.

“The trackers only die when the agent does.”

Eve, trying hard to remain composed, responds.

“What about water?”

“Unless he took a dive in the ocean, water shouldn’t stop the tracker.”

M’s voice is hard when he speaks, turning to the group of agents and techs alike.

“We will continue our search. If we do not find him by the end of the week, we are done. Is that understood?”

Everyone remembers the Skyfall incident, Eve remembers Bond’s fake death, Bond remembers Silva and the room of graveyard computers, M remembers his predecessor. Everyone takes a deep breath and returns to work. 

A tech grabs hold of both Eve and Bond’s arms and walks them to a side office where files are spread out along every surface. The first thing Bond sees is the name of the organisation that has his Quartermaster: Skull. He grits his teeth and stands over the metal table, resisting the urge to sweep the contents onto the floor and shoot at the walls. He cannot lose some again, not so soon. 

Eve squeezes his hand and sits down to pore over the documents, Bond tilts his head to the sky and closes his eyes, composing his body and his thoughts before joining in on the manhunt for Q.  
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Q gasps as he is pulled once more from the depths of murky salt water and laughing sharks. He knows it’s not possible for sharks to laugh, but the wide expanse of teeth that stretch before him each time he is submerged, makes him start to believe differently. He counts five, then six, then seven seconds, and breathes in and out, in and out. At least for now, he is done.

The room was new, the technique was new, the tactic was new. Bones was getting creative and that was never a good sign. Q absently fingers the, now dead, tracker in the top, left button of his soaking wet collar. The only things that can block the signal are death and, as luck would have it, salt water. Q wonders if Bones knows this. Q wonders if Bond knows this.

And so, the never-ending cycle of doubt, torture, doubt begins again as the seed sporuts the beginning of roots. Q knows that this is what Bones wants, he wants to leave the Quartermaster feeling helpless, feeling as if he has no hope. And, just when he is at his breaking point, Bones will ask once more for Q to access MI6. And Q doesn't know if he’ll have the strength to say no if that time comes.

But that time is not now, and, as he is shivering under the air vent in his basement room, Q knows that, if anyone could find him, it is MI6. The tracking device was only one of many hints he left behind that night and, if he waits, he knows that someone will pick up his breadcrumb trail.  
Now, Q thinks to himself, if only they would hurry the fuck up.

**Author's Note:**

> First in a, rather short, installment for a request fill for kneelingtothenorthernlights on tumblr. Un-beta'd at the moment.


End file.
